


The Squire Lives the Stories

by Opalgirl



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-11
Updated: 2010-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-15 08:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalgirl/pseuds/Opalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the second pass, Rikash bit his lip and watched her because he'd promised he would</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Squire Lives the Stories

 

Rikash sat in the box—not the royal box; as a child of commoners, he didn't belong there, even if Their Majesties and Their Royal Highnesses would welcome him—and watched the princess mount up, accepting her lance and helm from a field monitor. 

 

He held his breath as the horn sounded and the riders thundered down the lanes, and was forced to release it before Liano's lance struck her opponent's shield squarely. He'd never understood the draw of the joust, but he did understand that the princess thought she had a point to prove.

 

On the second pass, he bit his lip—was this how Da felt, when Ma went spying?—and watched her, because he'd promised he would. The other knight's lance struck hard and sent the princess flying from her saddle. He swore he could hear the sound of her making contact with the ground, even from his distance.

 

The applause from the royal box was polite, but nothing more, and he could tell that Princess Shinkokami and Prince Roald were watching their daughter as intently as he was.

 

***

 

They'd been born in the same year, a few months apart, in the aftermath of the Scanran War, he and the princess. According to Ma, "everyone" had had babies that year. They hadn't been raised as playmates, mostly because his parents were constantly on the move, and he and Sarralyn had been shuffled from palace to tower and to the homes of various friends.

 

The first time he met Liano properly, they were eleven and he'd run face-first into her in the library. He'd been scared, he remembered—no one could mistake her for someone else, not with that face and he'd just fallen flat on his backside in front of the princess—and she'd seemed to _glow_ , wearing her red-and-gold uniform.

 

Then she'd grinned at him, reached for his hand, and tugged him to his feet. Somehow, she'd made him feel like less of an idiot in that moment.

 

***

 

Rikash waited until Sir Seaver and Princess Shinkokami had left Liano's tent—he wasn't an appropriate match for a princess of royal and imperial lineage, destined for a marriage of state, and he wouldn't ruin her future with gossip—and entered, quietly. Thankfully, his appallingly nosy sister was well away from the Progress camp this week; Sarralyn could keep a secret, but she loved to pry and he _hated_ answering her questions.

 

Lianokami was sitting on the edge of her cot, cleaning her armour, and didn't notice him.

 

When he'd asked why she was pursuing this madness, she told him that every heir to the throne had been a knight, and she intended to keep that tradition. Even if she would be the first Tortallan queen regnant in centuries—Rikash knew his history, probably too well—she was keeping the old tradition.

 

"I didn't give you much to watch," she said darkly, drawing him from his thoughts. "I'm sorry."

 

He shrugged and instinctively stepped closer to her, reaching for her hand. "I told you I know nothing about jousting, didn't I?"

 

Liano's callused fingers closed around his, easily, and she shook her head at him, wearing her little half-smile that indicated her amusement. "It was a bad match," she said, and raked her fingers through her sweat-damp black hair. "On the second pass, I wasn't set right."

 

Then, suddenly, she frowned up at him and rose to her feet. With her in her stocking feet and him in boots, they were of a matched height; when she wore boots, she was taller.

 

" _Anata_ ," she said, her voice soft as she slipped from Common to her mother's native Yamani, "if it upsets you, you don't have to watch the rounds. I think it upsets Mama, but I can't tell _her_ that—she'd be insulted. All of the stories, though…." she trailed off, clearly embarrassed.

 

"What?" he asked, genuinely not knowing what stories she was talking about.

 

"The old stories, the ones Grandfather tells, always mention a knight having a lover to cheer for them in the stands; I thought, perhaps…."

 

When she looked at him like that, her eyes wide, he couldn't tell her 'no', and refuse to watch her compete. He simply couldn't, not now, not ever. If Lianokami wanted to live out yet another story, why couldn't he let her?

 

 

 

 


End file.
